Mei Mei
by MiraofAzureSky
Summary: On a rain-soaked battlefield, Kamui suddenly has thoughts of his sister. Pre-Yoshiwara, one-shot.


_A/N—It's my first time writing a fic, so...yeah. I reeeeaaaally hope this is accurate enough, and that I didn't make Kamui too OOC. I watched the Yoshiwara Arc a few months ago and really liked Kamui, but didn't think to write a fic until yesterday when I was driving home from picking up my brother. Yoshiwara Arc's kinda long though, and I'm preparing for college so I don't really have the time to review it except by skimming. And obviously, with some of the flashbacks, I did embellish a little. Apologies in advance for any errors, and I hope you enjoy it!_

_P.S.--Thanks to carrotsandroses for helping me edit! 3_

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Kamui stood silently on the battlefield, a dark purple parasol in his right hand. To the casual observer, he would look nearly defenseless. He had no guards; no weapons hung from his clothes. All he had was the parasol...and himself. However, that was all he needed. Kamui was a Yato, a race of _amanto_ marked by two defining features. One was their strength--the strength that allowed them to take down entire armies, even with a slender build like Kamui's. The other was their parasols.

Of course, the main point of the parasol was to protect them from the sun. Without it, they would burn; their skin and blood drying up immediately. Graying flesh cracked into scales, then separated from their bodies. It wasn't pretty, and certainly Kamui had no intention of going down in such a pointless fashion; so he always carried the parasol with him. However, the parasol also had another function. At its tip was concealed a gun, capable of firing several rounds.

The tip of Kamui's parasol was currently pointed at a person. _No...not a person. A fool._ Blood oozed from several places on the man's body, evidence of his fight with Kamui not five minutes before. It hadn't been a hard fight. In fact, it had been quite similar to a small child stepping on an ant. Even when several men came at him at once, Kamui had simply swung his leg around and his strength had ruptured their insides, killing them. This man was the last in that army, and as he babbled on, begging for mercy that he knew wouldn't be forthcoming, Kamui smiled. Regardless of how they had lived, it was appropriate to send a person to death with a smile. _Otherwise, they won't be able to die soundly._ He raised the parasol upwards, intending to finish the man swiftly so he could move on to another fight, feeding the gaping hole inside himself with the blood that all Yato yearned for.

"--my sister!"

Kamui stopped in mid-strike, the smile vanishing from his face. The man below him momentarily stopped blubbering as his eyes widened in fear, unsure of Kamui's next action.

_Sister..._

It was a word Kamui hadn't thought of in a long time. Overhead, thunder rumbled as the storm clouds that had been present the entire day intensified, gathering in a dark mass.

_Kamui stood at the entrance of the room, gazing into it at his family. They were all gathered around a futon in the middle; their concerned stares locked onto the form of a woman lying there. At one time, she could have been called beautiful. Fiery red hair lay in a halo around her head, framing deep blue eyes and delicate features. Now, however, though she was still pretty, things were quite different. Her skin, always pale, was now nearly white; her eyes sunken into a gaunt face. Beads of sweat clung to her feverish brow, but she shook with cold. Every once in a while her weak and rasping breaths were interrupted by a fit of coughing, and her face contorted in pain. Yes, though she had once been beautiful, kind, strong...the creature before him was none of those things. It was more accurate to say she was pathetic. The small girl at her side, nearly her mirror image, clung to her hand with a frightened expression. Tears rolled down her cheeks unchecked, and wisps of red hair came undone from the twin buns at the side of her head. _

"_**Mummy! Get up!" **__she screamed._

_Yes, the woman laying there in such a pitiful state was none other than Kamui's mother; the girl at her side his younger sister, Kagura. Kamui's eyes narrowed. And the man...his father, Umibouzu._

Within minutes, the rain had started falling. The fat drops hit Kamui, sinking into his clothes, his hair, rolling down his face unnoticed. The man at his feet stared, too shocked to try and move as he wondered why his opponent, previously so vicious, was now just standing there, staring distantly at the dark clouds overhead.

_Plop._

Another raindrop fell, but this time it struck his eye, and Kamui blinked, as if noticing the rain for the first time. A thought suddenly hit him, and he smiled again, this time in a more feral manner. Light laughter bubbled forth from his throat, causing the man in front of him to shriek and backpedal a few more feet on the ground before he collapsed, too injured to move further.

_Kamui stared resentfully at his father, standing in the yard of their home. _

"_**What is it that you want, Kamui?"**_

_For a moment, Kamui was too stunned to speak, and when he did, it was with undisguised hatred. _

"_**What do I **__**want**__**? What...do I...**__**WANT**__**? I WANT to know how you could do that! How could you..." **__He gritted his teeth, trying and failing to hold back angry tears. __**"How could you do that to Mother?! It's your fault! It's your fault she's sick, your fault she's going to die, your fault Kagura spends all her time crying! How could you even bring yourself to be in the same ROOM as Mother, knowing that?"**_

"_**Because of me?"**__ Umibouzu gazed coolly into his son's eyes. __**"Don't be a fool, Kamui. I did not poison your mother. I did not push her off a cliff or do anything else to harm her. If that's all this was about, then this was a waste of time. Go back inside and watch your sister."**_

_Umibouzu turned his back on Kamui, signaling that the conversation was at an end, and as Kamui stared blankly at his father's back, instincts he had been taught to suppress rose again to the surface, causing his blood to boil and a deep, aching hunger to rise in his soul. Before he could think to stop himself, Kamui leapt at his father's unprotected back, his wide blue eyes reflecting that hunger and intent to kill. _

_Blood sprayed everywhere, painting the yard with red as Umibouzu swiftly turned to block his son. His severed arm fell to the ground and twitched for a few moments before staying still. His eyes reddened with bloodlust as he turned to face his son, and both fighters assumed their stances, waiting each other out. Neither one noticed the small shadow behind the gate, and as she toddled out, they both leaped forward._

"_**PAPI! BIG BROTHER!"**_

_Kagura screamed, running forward to grab her father's leg just as Umibouzu's blow connected with Kamui's head, slamming him into the ground and knocking the breath from his lungs._

_Blood began to pool from under his head, but it ached too much to try and move, so instead he continued to stare forward. Cooling raindrops fell from the sky, soft and delicate and soothing, and Kamui couldn't help but welcome the state of oblivion he was about to enter. _

_**Rest...**_

_The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes and everything went black was Kagura's frightened face._

_-----------------A few months later---------------- _

_Kamui looked around the house one last time. It wasn't that he felt any particular attachment to it; in fact it was quite the opposite. That was why he was leaving. He couldn't stand to be in the same house his father had lived in. Weak...so weak. Kamui couldn't bear to be associated with that person, couldn't bear what would happen should that weakness rub off. _

_Since the fight, Kamui had changed. He no longer resisted his Yato blood, but rather enjoyed its company. It lent him strength, it was natural, it was everything his father wasn't. The restlessness within him became stronger as he thought of all the fights he would be able to be in, and with a wicked grin Kamui picked up his parasol and began to walk._

_As he stepped down the stairs leading from their home, Kamui raised his parasol to protect himself from the rain. _

_Pit-pat. Pit-pat pit-pat pit-pat._

_Kamui paused to listen for a moment, allowing the sound to grow closer._

_**Kagura.**_

_The sound of small little footsteps stopped, and he looked lazily over his shoulder. Kagura stood only a few steps behind him, as he had expected, a confused expression in her eyes as she gripped her own parasol._

"_**...big brother...? Where are you going?"**_

"**_Away." _**_Kamui said shortly, and continued on his way down the steps._

_Pit-pat._

_Kamui abruptly stopped in mid-step, one foot still lingering on the stair behind him._

"_**If you're going away, then I want to come with. Papi already left, and Mummy is going to go soon too..." **_

_Kamui could practically hear her small voice crinkle with sadness, and every once in a while there was a choking sob as she tried to keep her tears at bay. He finished his forgotten step, his first foot joining the second._

"**_No. Stay at home. There are lots of strong people where I'm going, Kagura." _**_Pausing for a moment, he turned his head to smile savagely at his sister from under the parasol's canopy. His next __words came out slow, deliberate. _**_"And I have no use for weaklings."_**

_The sobbing sounds abruptly cut off, and Kamui returned to looking at the bottom of the stairs. He waited for a while more, his back turned to Kagura, and then cautiously took the next stair. Where previously there had been little footsteps, only silence greeted him now; and so he took the rest of the steps at a normal pace. Only when he was almost at the bottom and out of the gate did he turn around again; and with a self-satisfied smile, note that there was nobody there._

Kamui turned to face his opponent, no longer bothering to blink the rain away. So many opponents had died at his hands over the years, and yet he let this one distract him with one simple word. _Sister._ Pathetic. _Family. _Weak. It was just one more thing that would prevent him from become the strongest, so he had abandoned it long ago. It would stop him from fighting, keep him from soothing his bloodlust; perhaps one day it would even kill him. Kamui was beginning to find himself hard-pressed to keep up his smile, practiced though it was, and so he slogged slowly through the mud to stand directly in front of the man once again.

_Weak._

The parasol fell, and the man's corpse slumped to the ground.

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_A/N—Wow, Umibouzu is reeeeaaally OOC, isn't he? D: I'm sorry, Umibouzu fans, forgive me! Thank you everyone for putting up with my fic, and if you can, please write a review and tell me what you thought of it. 3 _


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